Decisions
by Skia Shadow
Summary: Oneshot about a slightly more mature Harry dealing with Draco's badges in the Triwizard Tournament.
1. Harry Snaps

**A/N: Hello people. Just a short oneshot to get my creative juices flowing for a longer length fanfic I'm starting, featuring a slightly crazy Hermione who is incredibly intelligent, but also incredibly scary, especially to the Ravenclaws who've heard the stories. More on that later. Probably within the next week. I make no promises. Anyway, this is probably all I'm writing for this, though maybe I'll add to it if you guys ask. - Skía**

 **Disclaimer: Skía Shadow is not a J.K. Rowling. Skía Shadow does not own Harry Potter. Skía Shadow is a bad elf because Skía Shadow is not an elf. Skía Shadow is a Time Lord.**

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Harry Potter had made a decision. An important, life changing decision. He decided to, in his own words, 'screw this shit.' It was not a random decision. He had been provoked. Provoked by none other than Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy had, as usual, been being an arrogant toerag who made bad decisions and was generally an idiot. Harry could have dealt with that, he was used to it, but this time most of Hogwarts agreed with Draco Malfoy. This, you see, was a problem. A very big problem. So Harry, being Harry, decided to do something idiotic and nonsensical.

Harry took the badge Draco was holding out to Hermione. He pinned it to his robes, obscuring the Gryffindor symbol.

'Thank you, Draco. I'm honored to be bestowed with such a gift from a noble being such as a Malfoy.'

Malfoy stared at him, mouth agape. Harry used every ounce of his considerable stubbornness and willpower to prevent himself from laughing at the expression on his rival's face.

' **En boca cerrada, no entran moscas** ,' he deadpanned, glad he had payed attention in the Spanish lessons at his muggle primary school. A large portion of the muggleborns at Hogwarts spoke rudimentary Spanish and it was worth it to see the expressions on their faces. Draco, meanwhile, was stuttering.

'Wh-You-Pot-Button-Huh? Ugh! You insufferable...Urgh!'

'Something you're trying to say, Draco? I'm afraid I couldn't quite understand you.' Harry raised an eyebrow, mouth twitching slightly. Damn. He really needed to start learning how to mask his facial expressions better.

Next to Harry, Hermione also seemed to be trying to hide her amusement, and surprise at Harry. Harry understood. He normally fell, hook, line, and sinker for whatever taunts Malfoy tried to use on him. Mostly it was because Harry was angry and wanted to get into a verbal sparring match with someone. Normally though, trying to spar with Malfoy didn't do anything but make Harry more annoyed. Malfoy was not even remotely witty, which made having a witty 'conversation' with him incredibly difficult.

It had taken him four years, but now Harry understood that there was no point trying with Malfoy. He instead opted to subtly make fun of him by leaving him confused as hell, wondering what Harry was playing at.

After hearing Harry's last comment and taking about a minute to process that it was meant to be sarcastic, Malfoy raised his fist in rage, saying 'Potter…' in warning.

Hermione moved suddenly, as if she thought Harry was going to pull out his wand on Malfoy. Harry did no such thing. He merely put on an innocent face and said 'Yes?'

Malfoy's face turned the color of a blotchy, heavily sunburned, red creature and he punched Harry hard in the face. The last thing Harry saw before he blacked out was Snape entering the hallway. Glad that he was clearly unarmed and not a threat, Harry smiled.

 _Step one; phase one; mission one: Start cluing Snape into the fact that Draco is the bully, not me. Guess I can check that off._

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 **A/N:** _ **En boca cerrada, no entran moscas. -**_ **In English this literally translates to something along the lines of 'In one's closed mouth, no flies enter.' (Spanish is not my first language, and I'm still in the process of learning it. This may be slightly incorrect, but the idea is the same.)**

 **As always, please review! And check out my other fic, Other's Perspectives, if you haven't already. It features a Hermione with an awesome mind palace and great questions about platform 9 ¾ existence (I still want those answered, J. !). Thanks for reading, please review! - Skía**


	2. Hermione

**A/N: I decided to add another one shot as a sequel-ish thing, so yay! Um yeah it's like a year later than I thought it would be but… I have no excuses. Um. Sorry.**

 **P.S. I'm sorry, I think it's a drastic decline in quality from the last chapter.**

 **1-18-9-5-19: Thanks so much! I'm glad you liked my writing.**

 **deiserys: Yup, here it is! Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I wish I owned Harry Potter… Oh the things I would do… *evil laugh.* Anyway, I don't own it. Unfortunately. It all belongs to J. K. Rowling and it's not in the public domain (yet).**

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Harry woke up in a very familiar bed. Contrary to what might be expected from that statement, it was not his own bed. It was his bed in the Hospital Wing. He slowly pried his eyes open to see something else familiar. Hermione was right next to his bed, looking slightly worried. He turned his head, fully expecting to see another familiar sight, but Ron was not there. Harry sighed. He had forgotten about Ron's idiocy. Before his mind drifted to thinking about the complete stupidity and absolute foolishness of that weasel, Hermione's voice interrupted him.

"Who are you and what have you done with my slightly stupid, impulsive friend who lacks an ounce of cunning?" She exclaimed, the amused glint in her eye giving her away.

"The name's Potter. Harry Potter," Harry deadpanned.

Hermione let out a snort of amusement. "Since when do you watch Bond?"

"I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question. I grew up in the muggle world."

Harry saw Hermione's face contort with realization for a split second and sighed. Everyone always forgot that he knew about muggle society, as he was so famous in the wizarding world. But it wasn't really their fault. If he weren't himself and he met himself he would probably assume he knew all about the wizarding world too. Wait… that was confusing. Whatever.

"Uhhh… Harry? Earth to Harry?"

"So, Ms. Granger, your ego has reached the point where you think you are qualified to represent the entirety of Earth. You are even more of a dunderheaded fool than I thought you were," said Harry in his best Snape impression.

Hermione's eyes widened.

"How did you get so good at that?"

Harry just grinned mysteriously.

"I don't think I've said this yet, but what you did earlier with Malfoy? That was pretty badass."

Harry's grin widened.

"That's what I was going for."

Hermione's grinned, but then abruptly stopped. She wrinkled her forehead in thought.

"Harry… don't take this the wrong way… but you've always acted much stupide- I mean not as smart as you're currently acting. Were you… were you hiding it?"

"Hermione, the moment I entered the wizarding world, I knew I'd have to be careful. My main reasoning was that I didn't want to alert old Voldyshorts and his gang of idiots to the fact that they might be facing an actual threat."

"But didn't you think that- _He-_ was dead at the time? And then why did you stop pretending?"

"I never thought Voldemort was dead. Hagrid implied as much when he first explained about the wizarding world to me. And as to why I stopped hiding it… well Malfoy was being an idiot, and Ron was- is- well, you know… so I just kinda snapped. It was too much. And then I thought, now that I've messed up, why not just drop the pretense? I'll be in danger whether they think I'm smart or not. I was really only hurting myself."

Hermione nodded.

"I always thought you were smarter than you let on. I'm glad you decided to stop hiding."

Harry smiled.

 _Step two, phase one, mission one: Get Hermione in on it, even if she doesn't realize it yet. I can check that off too, though of course I'll have to tell her she's helping me with my plan at some point. And also tell her the plan. But that can wait._

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 **A/N: Please review :)**

 **But seriously, I would really like some feedback. I want to continue this, but some indication of whether this chapter was any good or not would be nice.**


	3. The One Where Almost Nothing Happens

**A/N: So another- erm- almost year has gone by. I'm sorry, it's just lately I've been doing more creative writing than fanfiction and when I post my creative writing no one reads it so I just didn't bother posting it. And then I also didn't write more of this so… but no excuses. I'm going to attempt to have a posting schedule from now on, I'm thinking maybe a new chapter every Sunday (starting next Sunday). We'll see how it goes. And once again, I'm sorry.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. This is a boring disclaimer. Oops.**

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"Hermione, what did I miss in Potions?" Harry asked.

"Oh, Professor Snape wanted to test our antidotes on someone. He ended up using Neville, but I think it would have been you if you were there."

"Good thing I provoked Malfoy then."

Hermione looked at him disapprovingly, but Harry could see her mouth twitching. Then she abruptly turned serious.

"Ron's really mad."

"Yeah, well that's his problem. I've done nothing."

"It's hard for him, you know? He has so many older brothers who were always overshadowing him; when people see him they think _look, a Weasley,_ he never gets to be an individual. And then he gets a best friend, but is once again in his shadow. And now you're in the _Triwizard Tournament._ "

"That's not an excuse for him to be a dick though!"

"I know. But think about it, okay?"

Harry just looked down, but Hermione seemed satisfied. She moved on to the next topic (Hermione always conducted conversations like she was going through a checklist. She had a list of topics to get through and she neatly completed each one before continuing on to the next).

"That reminds me, Colin came in during Potions looking for you. It seems that there was a wand weighing ceremony for the champions and you were supposed to go. They were also taking photographs."

"Wow, I _really_ dodged a bullet by getting here. Didn't get poisoned _or_ have to be photographed and gawked at."

"Harry!"

"Come on Hermione, you know you love it." He gave her a cheeky grin.

Hermione was about to reply, but Madam Pomfrey came bustling in and gave a start when she saw Hermione.

"Young lady, I told you you could be here until 5:00. It is currently 5:30."

"Oh, I'm so sorry Madam Pomfrey, I lost track of time."

"Hm. Well don't let it happen again. Out with you now!" Hermione scurried out of the room, looking a little embarrassed.

Harry turned to Madam Pomfrey. "When will I be discharged from here?"

"I would recommend you stay here for the night."

Harry looked at her pleadingly.

"BUT since I know you'll probably leave somehow anyway, I will let you go now. However, I do have one stipulation."

"Ugh, what is it… " Harry groaned.

"At least _try_ not to be back here within the next week."

"Can do!" Harry grabbed his stuff and almost sprinted out of the Hospital Wing. Gosh, he hated that place.

When Harry came up to his dorm after dinner, Ron was standing in the common room looking as if he had been waiting. "There's an owl for you. Maybe it's from one of your _fans_ ," he almost sneered, gesturing at the window. He started walking out of the room, but Harry was thinking about what Hermione has said.

"Ron, wait."

"What, _Potter."_

For some reason, Ron using his last name stopped Harry from saying what he was going to. "Nevermind, Weasleby." Ron snorted and stalked out, leaving Harry to wonder if he was ever going to have his friend back… and if he even wanted to. But enough thinking, he had a protest to plan.

"HERMIONE! I NEED YOUR BRAINING SKILLS!"

In a couple seconds, Hermione was coming down the staircase. " _Braining?_ Really Harry?"

"Yep!"

Hermione sighed. "What do you even need my help with?"

"Gaming the Triwizard Tournament?"

 _Step one, phase two, mission one: Introduce my plan… check. Also why am I doing this list thing? I don't even know what the mission is… honestly my main mission is to cause havoc. Yeah, screw this list._

 _Havoc begun._

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 **A/N:** _ **Please**_ **review. I can't tell if this is any good unless people review. That's actually why The Perils of Being a Griffinclaw got abandoned (And yes, it's permanently abandoned. I lost interest in it.) Also, I made Ron a little harsher towards Harry because they didn't have that kinship with Hermione being cursed (her teeth growing) and reacting to Snape's "I see no difference." -Skía**

 **Also I'm sorry I can't keep anything as pure humor for longer than like, one chapter. This has devolved into a serious™ fic. We can't have that! Don't worry, the next chapter will fix it :)**


	4. To Cook With Dragons

**A/N: Hopefully this isn't being posted after May 5th since that's when I said I would post.**

 **Later A/N: Exactly two months after May 5th… I'm sorry, I'm terrible, but it's here now!** **It's a little longer than usual but I wanted to make the next chapter the tournament.**

 **Shoutout to SarcasmLand for being my beta! She's also got some great fanfics and her proofreading/critique is excellent.**

 **Disclaimer: If I had made these characters, the main one wouldn't be named Harry. So no, I did not create these characters or this world.**

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"So let me get this straight _(jk happy late pride month to all of you -Skía)_ ," said Hermione. "You want to protest the fact that you're being forced into the tournament by _baking_ during the task."

"Yeah, that's about right. I was thinking a soufflé might do the trick."

The first task was on Thursday, two days away. Harry and Hermione had spent the past two months or so figuring out how to cause the most chaos (Hermione was surprisingly quick to jump on board, she seemed quite peeved about Harry being forced to participate in the Tournament). Hermione began teaching Harry the summoning spell so he could acquire any necessary materials and their brainstorming was less limited. They had started by just loosely discussing ideas that would be annoying, but then Hagrid had showed him the dragons (dragons!) and they'd freaked out for a bit until Hermione realized that knowing what the task was changed nothing and they should still aim for maximum chaos. So that's exactly what they did.

"You definitely have to make a soufflé. That's just…" she started giggling. "That's really funny to me, I don't know why."

"See? I'm actually quite sensible."

"Sensible? I just said that you had a good idea for _causing chaos_ in an _internationally respected event_. You call that sensible?"

"But Hermione, I'm not sensible remember?"

"UGH!"

"Getting back to the topic at hand," Harry deflected, not quite ready to face Hermione's wrath.

Hermione was clearly not fooled, but didn't bring it up. "So we've already established that you shouldn't do the actual task. And they probably didn't set a time limit so you'll have to be prepared to be there for a while."

"Ok, but I do have to set up some kind of shield against the dragon. I mean, I don't want that thing overcooking my soufflé."

"Well, if you don't seem to have any malicious intent towards the dragon or its eggs, it will most likely leave you alone. Use _protego totalem_ around the area you set up for making the soufflé, that should cover you. And we need to get the ingredients, oven, and bowls from the kitchen in advance, so today or tomorrow. What do you need?"

"Erm."

"Harry?"

"So there is a slight problem…"

" _Harry…"_ Hermione's voice took on a slightly threatening tone.

"I have no bloody idea how to make a soufflé."

…

The library was deathly silent at 9:00 PM on a Tuesday night, only an hour before curfew. If you had walked in through the main entrance all you would have seen were dusty tables and chock-full bookshelves in the dim light which showcased the dust floating through the air. But farther within this cove of books were two very tired students frantically perusing the shelves.

"I still can't believe you made this plan without knowing how to make soufflé!"

"I just thought it was funny at the time. Plus, I had to cook all the time with the Dursleys. How much harder could this be?"

"Well there are no books on cooking in _any_ of the sections! The only place in this entire library that I haven't combed through is the-" Hermione cut off abruptly.

"Erm… 'Mione?"

"Oh, Merlin. They're in the restricted section."

Harry looked at Hermione with concern. "'The restricted section is for "dark" and "dangerous" books, not _cookbooks._ Why would a soufflé recipe be there?"

"I can think of a few reasons. What if wizards think that cooking is dark because some of it involves parts of animals? No, that doesn't make sense, we use parts of animals in potions. But what about how some of it rises in the oven or changes in other ways even though there's no magic involved? I can imagine how wizards would react to that I mean look at Mr. Weasley's reaction to a basic thing like electricity… not that electricity is basic, it was a great invention I just meant… wait! Maybe cooking is there because of that 1943 revolt! Yes that must be it, that makes sense, and it's not like Hogwarts ever reorganizes its library, all those sex spells (Harry coughed) are still in the torture part of the restricted section and the Wizarding World isn't of that mindset anymore… yes, it's that revolt."

"What happened in the…" Harry started to ask, but trailed off as Hermione turned to look at him. He coughed. "Never mind."

Hermione went over to the restricted section, opened the gate by reaching over to the latch on the inside, and just walked in without a care in the world. Harry froze, his eyes darting around. Madam Pince was right there, but she did nothing, not even seeming to notice anything amiss. Harry starting moving towards the gate, but she glanced up sharply.

"Mister Potter, I assume you're not trying to go into the restricted section?"

"No, of course not," Harry ground out, glaring at the entrance as if Hermione were still there. He stalked over to the table and sat down, still scowling at the restricted section. She returned only five minutes later and casually walked out of the gate, stopping in front of Madam Pince.

"Good evening, Madam Pince."

"Evening, Ms. Granger." The normally stern librarian smiled at Hermione. "I suggest you begin the journey to your common room soon as curfew is closing in."

"Of course, I was just about to head back. Good night!" Hermione casually walked over to Harry and began to pack her stuff, motioning to him to do the same. They exited the library and Harry waited until they turned a corner before pulling Hermione into an alcove.

"What the hell?" He hissed. "How did you do that?"

"There are benefits to being seen as a good student. I capitalized on the fact that teachers would need a hard push before they'd suspect me of wrongdoing and on the fact that if you walk as if you are supposed to be doing what you are, people don't really look at you."

"That's all it took to get into the restricted section while Madam Pince was literally looking at the door?"

"Well it also helped that she likes me and sees a lot of me so she's given me a pass for the restricted section-" Harry began to interrupt but she continued. "to browse _only_."

Harry frowned. "So you couldn't check anything out? Did you at least find something useful?"

"I couldn't check anything out, but I didn't have to." Hermione pulled something out of her pocket. As she brought it up, Harry saw that it was a small rectangle, about an inch long and gasped.

"You _stole_ a library book! Who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger?!"

"Relax, Harry, I did it for a very important international competition." She glanced around before leaning closer to Harry and whispering, "But I do quite enjoy breaking the rules for this. It's such a good prank, I can't wait until they see you making a soufflé with a dragon next to you."

…

It was the morning of the task and Hermione was anxiously going over everything with Harry one last time in an empty classroom.

"I've copied the recipe down onto a different page for you to use, you've already put all the ingredients in the box, I shrunk a saucepan, some bowls, and an oven and put them in- the oven was new so it should work but-"

"It works, Hermione, I tried it when I got it. This box seems good. When I summon it should I just say ' _accio my box of soufflé materials?_ '"

"I've labeled it ' _Harry's Soufflé Box'_ so if you call it that it will come. Are you good with your summoning charm? Summon the book over on the other side of the room. Ok, good. That's good. Do you think we're missing anything?"

"No, I think we're good."

"Okay." She glanced at her watch and bit her lip, frowning. "It's time to go down Harry. Are you ready?"

Harry grinned and looked down through the window at the spectators gathering in the stands. "Oh I am… but they're not even close."

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 **Here's a blooper for you guys… I just thought of it randomly and then had to do something:**

"Ok, Harry, after nine long months you've finally completed your animagus transformation. What are you?" asked Hermione.

Harry coughed.

"Er, Harry?"

"Sorry." He breathed deeply. "I'm a little hoarse."

"Oh, ok then. But what's your form?"

Harry looked distressed. "NO, Hermione, I'm a little HORSE!" He transformed and there in front of her was three foot tall pony.

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 **A/N: Ok, here's the next chapter! Next chapter'll be out probably within the next year or so. I've given up on schedules and accepted my awfulness. Now before you leave to the comment section (cough cough hint hint) here are some puns I made on the doc after "my friend who is technically on Ao3 but doesn't want to be blamed for her terrible puns" (she edited my doc to call herself that so I guess we're going with it?) responded to my use of serious™ on my last A/N on the doc I'm writing in.**

 **Her: Siriusly?  
** **Me: Yeah, I felt it would me remus of me not to  
** **Me: (remus? remiss? get it?)  
** **Her: Harry har har  
** **Her: god that was awful but I couldn't think of anything else  
** **Me: Yeah, you really went on the ron track there  
** **Me: but one bad pun won't end our friendship, won't... sever us  
** **Me: i can SORT of see why you made that bad pun though  
** **Me: nevertheless, there's a lot of broom for improvement  
** **Me: you might wonder where i've been quirreling away all these puns  
** **Me: well im aFRED i can't tell you  
** **Me: you might have to weasleyit out of me  
** **Me: arthur any more puns i haven't used?  
** **Me: if you're angry about these puns, im sure I can molly-fy you  
** **Me: Here you have a punfest... george yourself on these delicious puns**


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